'This isn't meant to be satire?' TNR serves up 'pathetic word salad' on Rachel Dolezal

Sarah D. | 4:58 PM on June 16, 2015

https://twitter.com/BenHowe/status/610905339525926912

OK, yeah, we probably should’ve seen this coming from a mile away, but still, we can’t help but marvel at the staggering stupidity contained within this New Republic piece:

Why Rachel Dolezal embodies White America's fears: http://t.co/UnoCPOpZXW pic.twitter.com/gvZAK24N6d

— The New Republic (@newrepublic) June 16, 2015

How do you even top that?

This is a joke, right? RT @tnr: Why Rachel Dolezal embodies White America's fears: http://t.co/NPESSLfEpr pic.twitter.com/WKeznRUWL2

— Christy Lynn (@ChristyLynnLSU) June 16, 2015

A joke? Not on your life.

https://twitter.com/BenHowe/status/610906845822070785

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/610910849545338881

https://twitter.com/BenHowe/status/610906134325559299

Here’s that last paragraph, for your edutainment:

Ultimately, Rachel Dolezal’s story seems like a story about fear. It expresses the fear all white Americans have, or should have: fear of acknowledging our own cultural history as creators of trauma and inflictors of abuse; fear of acknowledging the guilt inherent in this narrative, and, even more staggeringly, taking on the task of alchemizing guilt into something useful. Dolezal’s story also expresses, in its most redemptive moments, the love and respect she truly seemed to have for African-American culture—and the weakness that allowed her to see it not as a culture she wanted to use her white privilege to advocate for, but as a shelter in which she could hide from herself.